Hi, my name is Don!

August 13, 2006August 13, 2006

More shooting stars

There were a lot of stars out tonight. As usual, the big dipper was visual. You don’t get to see too many stars out in the night sky due to the amount of city lights. But tonight, I caught a glimpse of a shooting star. And not just one shooting star either, a few of them.

Tonight, I must have seen five or six shooting stars within a one hour time span. I didn’t see them straight on because I had no idea when or where the next one was coming from. I caught sight of them from the corner of my eye. As I turned to look in that direction, they were gone. But I turned just in time to see it. Never before have I seen so many in one night. I’ve read somewhere that there was supposed to be a meteor shower somewhere around August 20 but that’s a week away. The last time I saw a shooting star was around July of last year. I thought it was just coincidences that I saw so many.

I searched around the internet and found out that what I was seeing were the Perseids and apparently they are the most watched meteor shower. They were expected to show up around this time of the year with the peak periods being tonight. No wonder I saw so many! If I had stared into the night sky more, there was a chance that I could have seen 15-30 shooting stars.

Supposedly, there is this thing going around informing people that Mars will be passing close to the Earth again this year. The last time that happened was back in 2003. I remember because I was in Algonquin around that time. There was an old man at the beach who had a telescope and he has Mars in view. I got a chance to see the red planet up close. It wasn’t a clear view of it but it was still cool to see Mars with my own eyes for the first time. It would be nice to see it again this year but right now, Mars is too close to the sun for safe viewing.

Anyone wanting to see some shooting stars now is a good time. The meteor shower is supposed to last until August 25th with the peak being August 12th and 13th. If you are in the northern hemisphere look up towards the north western part of the sky. The area where I saw a lot was between the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia.